Page 80 (1/1)

"Well, help did coainst the wall, the guns were levelled at my heart, when the rescuers burst into the courtyard and the natives fled But I had shot the girl ten minutes earlier"

Anstice's broet with drops of sweat as he finished, his whole being convulsed with reony; and he turned aside lest he should read shrinking, or worse, conderey eyes which had never left his face

There was a silence in which to the man aited the whole world seehast at the brief recital which was aledy; and for a wild, hateful moment Anstice told himself that for all her boasted comprehension Iris had not the power to understand the full force of the situation

Then, suddenly, he found her beside him She had left her chair, noiselessly, as he turned away, and now she was standing close to hirey eyes, full of the sweetest, ed face

"Oh, you poor thing!" The pity in her voice made it sound like the softest music "What a dreadfully sad story; and how you htened on his arm--"why should you reproach yourself so bitterly? You did the only thing it was possible for you to do Noelse"

He turned to her now, and he had recaptured his self-control

"It is sweet--and kind--of you to say just that" Even now his voice was not quite steady "And if I could believe it--but all the time I tell myself if I had only waitedthere would perhaps have been a chanceI was too quick, too ready to obey her request, to carry out my promise"

"No, Dr Anstice" In Iris' voice was a womanliness which showed his story had reached the depths of her being "I's were, there was nothing else to be done, nothing If I had been the girl," said Iris quietly, "I should have thought you very cruel if you had broken your promise to me"

"Ah, yes," he said, slowly; "but you see there is another factor in the case which I haven't told you--yet She was engaged to beprematurely I destroyed the hopes of the man who loved her--whom she loved to the last second of her life"